Use of the word dominion, as a general term for
any British
overseas territory, dates back to the 17th century. Dominion,
as an official title, was first conferred on Virginia,
circa 1660 and
the Dominion
of New England in 1686. These dominions
never had semi-autonomous or self-governing status. Canada received
the title upon Confederation
in 1867 of several
British colonies in North America. The title would continue to
be used to refer to possessions of the British monarch until well
into the 20th century. The Imperial
Conference of 1907 was the first time the self-governing
colonies of Canada and Australia would be referred to together as
"Dominions". Two other self-governing
colonies, New Zealand and Newfoundland, were also granted the
title that year. They were followed by South Africa (1910) and the
Irish Free State (1922).

Dominion status was officially defined in the
Balfour Declaration (1926) and in the
Statute of Westminster (1931), which recognized these
territories as "autonomous Communities within the British Empire,"
establishing these states as equals to the United Kingdom, making
them essentially independent members of the Commonwealth of
Nations. Following the Second
World War, the decline of British colonialism led to Dominions
generally being referred to as Commonwealth realms, the use of the
word gradually diminished within these countries after this time;
nonetheless, though disused, it remains Canada's legal
title.

Historical development

Overseas dominions

Dominions originally referred to any
overseas possession of the British Empire. Oliver
Cromwell's full title in the 1650s was "Lord Protector of the
Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland, and the dominions
thereto belonging". In 1660, King Charles
II gave the Colony
of Virginia the title "Dominion" in gratitude for Virginia's
loyalty to the Crown during the English Civil War; the state still
retains "Old
Dominion" as its nickname. The name also occurred in the
short-lived Dominion
of New England (1686-1689). In all of these cases, dominion
implied being a subject of the Empire.

Australia and New Zealand were designated
dominions in 1907. The Australian Constitutions Act 1850
established the machinery for the four then existing Australian
colonies (namely New South Wales, Tasmania, Western Australia and
South Australia) to establish Parliaments and responsible
government once certain conditions had been met; it also provided
for the separation of Victoria from New South Wales and its
establishment as a separate colony (which occurred in 1851) with
similar capacity to attain self-government. New South
Wales, Victoria,
South
Australia, and Tasmania, along
with New
Zealand, attained responsible government soon after in 1856;
self-government for Western
Australia was delayed until 1891, mainly because of continuing
financial dependence on Britain. Queensland was
separated from New South
Wales and established as a separate colony in 1859. This left a
large piece of territory in northern Australia still technically
part of NSW though physically separated from it. This territory was
transferred in part to Queensland and the remainder to South
Australia in 1863 -- the South Australian section being eventually
transferred to the Commonwealth of Australia as the federal
Northern Territory in 1911.

Canada and Confederation

The 20th century usage of the term
"Dominion" can be traced to 1867 with the confederation
of the British
North American colonies of Canada
(subsequently the provinces of Ontario and
Quebec),
New
Brunswick and Nova Scotia
into "One Dominion under the Name of Canada", the first federation
in the British Empire. The new Canadian government subsequently
used "Dominion of Canada" to designate the new, larger colony.
Neither Confederation nor the adoption of the Dominion title,
however, granted extra autonomy or new powers to the new federal
level of government.

Constitutional scholar Andrew Heard
clearly establishes that Confederation in no way changed Canada's
colonial status to anything approaching its later dominion status.

At its inception in 1867, Canada's colonial status was marked
by political and legal subjugation to British Imperial supremacy in
all aspects of government - legislative, judicial, and executive.
The Imperial Parliament at Westminster could legislate on any
matter to do with Canada and could override any local legislation,
the final court of appeal for Canadian litigation lay with the
Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London, the Governor
General had a substantive role as a representative of the British
government, and ultimate executive power was vested in the British
Monarch - who was advised only by British Ministers in its
exercise. Canada's independence came about as each of these
sub-ordinations was eventually removed.

Heard goes on to
document the sizable body of legislation passed by the British
Parliament in the latter part of the 19th century that would uphold
and expand its Imperial supremacy to constrain its colonies,
including the new Dominion government.

When the Dominion of Canada was created in 1867 it was granted
powers of self-government to deal with all internal matters, but
Britain still retained overall legislative supremacy. This imperial
supremacy could be exercised through several statutory measures. In
the first place, the Constitution Act of 1867 provides in s.55 that
the Governor General may reserve any legislation passed by the two
Houses of Parliament for "the signification of Her Majesty's
pleasure", which is determined according to s.57 by the (British)
Queen in Council. Secondly, s.56 provides that the Governor General
must forward to "one of Her Majesty's Principal Secretary's of
State" in London a copy of any federal legislation that has been
assented to; within two years after the receipt of this copy, the
(British) Queen in Council can disallow an Act. Thirdly, four
pieces of Imperial legislation constrained the Canadian
legislatures. The Colonial Laws Validity Act of 1865 provided that
no colonial law could validly conflict with, amend or repeal
Imperial legislation which explicitly or by necessary implication
applied directly to that colony; the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894 as
well as the Colonial Courts of Admiralty Act, 1890 required
reservation of Dominion legislation on those topics for approval by
the British Government; and, the Colonial Stock Act of 1900
provided for the dis-allowance of Dominion legislation which the
British government felt would harm British stockholders of Dominion
trustee securities. Most importantly, however, the British
Parliament could exercise the legal right of supremacy it possessed
at common law to pass any legislation on any matter affecting the
colonies.

The Balfour Declaration and the Statute of Westminster

The
Balfour
Declaration of 1926, and the subsequent
Statute of Westminster, 1931, ended Britain's ability to pass
or affect laws outside of its own jurisdiction. Significantly, it
was Britain which initiated the change to complete independence for
the Dominions. World War I
had left Britain saddled with enormous debts and the Great
Depression had further reduced Britain's ability to pay for the
defence of its empire. In spite of popular opinions of empires, the
larger Dominions were reluctant to leave the protection of the
then-superpower. For example, many Canadians felt that being part
of the British Empire was the only thing that had prevented them
from being absorbed into the United States.

Until 1931, Newfoundland was referred to as a
colony of the United Kingdom, as for example, in the 1927 reference
to the
Judicial Committee of the Privy Council to delineate the
Quebec-Labrador boundary. Full autonomy was granted by the United
Kingdom parliament with the
Statute of Westminster in December 1931. However, the
government of Newfoundland "requested the United Kingdom not to
have sections 2 to 6[—]confirming Dominion
status[—]apply automatically to it[,] until the
Newfoundland Legislature first approved the Statute, approval which
the Legislature subsequently never gave." In any event,
Newfoundland's letters
patent of 1934 suspended self-government and instituted a
"Commission
of Government," which continued until Newfoundland became a
province of Canada in 1949. It is the view of some
constitutional lawyers that—although Newfoundland chose
not to exercise all of the functions of a Dominion like
Canada—its status as a Dominion was "suspended" in 1934,
rather than "revoked" or "abolished".

Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland and
South Africa (prior to becoming a republic and leaving the
Commonwealth in 1961), with their large populations of European
descent, were sometimes collectively referred to as the "White
Dominions." Today Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United
Kingdom are sometimes referred to collectively as the "White
Commonwealth."

The United Kingdom and its component parts never
aspired to the title of "Dominion," remaining anomalies within the
network of free and independent equal members of the empire and
Commonwealth. However the idea has on occasions been floated by
some in Northern
Ireland as an alternative to a United
Ireland if they felt uncomfortable within the United
Kingdom.

The Dominions

Australia

Four colonies of Australia had enjoyed
responsible government since 1856: New South Wales, Victoria,
Tasmania and South Australia. Queensland had responsible government
soon after its founding in 1859 but, because of ongoing financial
dependence on Britain, Western Australia became the last Australian
colony to attain self-government in 1890 . During the 1890s, the
colonies voted to unite and in 1901 they were federated under the
British Crown as the Commonwealth
of Australia by the
Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act.The Constitution
of Australia had been drafted in Australia and approved by
popular consent. Thus Australia is one of the few countries
established by a popular vote. Under the Balfour Declaration, the
federal government was regarded as coequal with (and not
subordinate to) the British and other Dominion governments, and
this was given formal legal recognition in 1942 (when the Statute
of Westminster was retroactively adopted to the commencement of
the Second World War 1939). The governments of the states (called
colonies before 1901) remained under the Commonwealth but retained
vestigial links to the British Parliament until the passage of the
Australia
Act 1986.

''Whereas the Provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New
Brunswick have expressed their Desire to be federally united into
One Dominion under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Ireland, with a Constitution similar in Principle to that of
the United Kingdom ...

and, furthermore, sections 3 and 4 indicate that
the provinces:

... shall form and be One Dominion under the Name of Canada;
and on and after that Day those Three Provinces shall form and be
One Dominion under that Name accordingly.

Unless it is otherwise expressed or implied, the Name Canada
shall be taken to mean Canada as constituted under this
Act.

Usage of the term Dominion of Canada was
sanctioned as the country's formal political name, and some still
read the BNA Act passage as specifying this phrase – rather than
Canada alone – as the name. The term Dominion of Canada does not
appear in the 1867 act nor in the Constitution
Act, 1982 but does appear in the
Constitution Act, 1871, other contemporaneous texts, and
subsequent bills. References to the Dominion of Canada'' in later
acts, such as the Statute
of Westminster, do not clarify the point because all nouns were
formally capitalised in British
legislative style. Indeed, in the original text of the BNA Act,
"One" and "Name" were also capitalised.

Starting in the 1950s, the federal government
began to phase out the use of Dominion, which had been used largely
as a synonym of "federal" or "national" such as "Dominion building"
for a post office, "Dominion-provincial relations", and so on. The
last major change was renaming the national holiday from Dominion Day
to Canada
Day in 1982. Official bilingualism laws also
contributed to the disuse of dominion, as it has no acceptable
equivalent in French.

While the term may be found in older official
documents, and the Dominion
Carillonneur still tolls at Parliament
Hill, it is rarely used any more to distinguish the federal
government from the provinces or (historically) Canada before and
after 1867. Nonetheless, the federal government continues to
produce publications and educational materials that specify the
currency of these official titles.

Defenders of the title Dominion —
including monarchists
who see signs of creeping republicanism
in Canada — take comfort in the fact that the Canadian
Constitution
Act, 1982 does not mention and therefore does not remove the
title, and that a constitutional amendment would be required to
change it.

India and Pakistan

India acquired
responsible government in 1909, though the first Parliament did not
meet until 1919. India and Pakistan separated
as independent dominions in 1947. India became a republic in 1950
and Pakistan adopted a republican form of government in 1956.

Newfoundland and Labrador

The colony of Newfoundland
enjoyed responsible government from 1855-1934. It was among the
colonies to be declared dominions in 1907. Following the
recommendations of a Royal Commission, parliamentary government was
suspended in 1934. In 1948 Newfoundland
and Labrador joined Canada and the legislature was
restored.

Foreign relations

Initially, the Foreign Office of the
United
Kingdom conducted the foreign relations of the Dominions. A
Dominions section was created within the Colonial Office for this
purpose in 1907. Canada set up its own Department of External
Affairs in June 1909, but diplomatic relations with other
governments continued to operate through the governors-general,
Dominion High Commissioners in London (first appointed by Canada in
1880; Australia followed only in 1910) and British legations
abroad. Britain deemed her declaration of war against Germany in August
1914 to extend without the need for consultation to all territories
of the Empire, occasioning some displeasure in Canadian official
circles and contributing to a brief anti-British insurrection by
Afrikaner
militants in South Africa later that year. A Canadian War Mission
in Washington,
D.C., dealt with supply matters from February 1918 to March
1921.

Although the Dominions had had no formal voice in
declaring war, each became a separate signatory of the June 1919
peace Treaty
of Versailles, which had been negotiated by a British-led
united Empire delegation. In September 1922, Dominion reluctance to
support British military action against Turkey influenced
Britain's decision to seek a compromise settlement. Diplomatic
autonomy soon followed, with the U.S.-Canadian Halibut Fisheries
Agreement (March 1923) marking the first international treaty
negotiated and concluded entirely independently by a Dominion. The
Dominions Section of the Colonial
Office was upgraded in June 1926 to a separate Dominions
Office. However, initially the same person was appointed as the
Secretary of State for the Colonies.

The principle of Dominion equality with Britain
and independence in foreign relations was formally recognised by
the Balfour
Declaration adopted at the Imperial
Conference of November 1926. Canada's first permanent
diplomatic mission to a foreign country opened in Washington, DC in
1927. In 1928, Canada obtained the appointment of a British
high
commissioner in Ottawa, separating the administrative and
diplomatic functions of the governor-general and ending the
latter's anomalous role as the representative of the British
government in relations between the two countries. The Dominions
Office was given a separate secretary of state in June 1930, though
this was entirely for domestic political reasons given the need to
relieve the burden on one ill minister whilst moving another away
from unemployment policy. The Balfour Declaration was enshrined in
the
Statute of Westminster 1931 when it was adopted by the British
Parliament and subsequently ratified by the Dominion
legislatures.

Britain's declaration of hostilities
against Germany on September 3,
1939 tested
the issue. Most took the view that the declaration did not commit
the Dominions. Ireland chose to remain neutral. At the other
extreme, the conservative Australian government of the day, led by
Robert
Menzies, took the view that, since Australia had not adopted
the Statute of Westminster, it was legally bound by the UK
declaration of war—which had also been the view at the
outbreak of World War I — although this was contentious
within Australia. Between these two extremes, New Zealand declared
that as Britain was or would be at war, so it was too. This was,
however, a matter of political choice rather than legal necessity.
Canada issued its own declaration of war after a recall of
Parliament, as did South Africa after a delay of several days
(South Africa - September 6, Canada - September 10). Ireland,
which had negotiated the removal of British forces from its
territory the year before, chose to remain neutral throughout the
war. There were soon signs of growing independence from the other
Dominions: Australia opened a diplomatic mission in the US in 1940,
as did New Zealand in 1941, and Canada's mission in Washington
gained embassy status in 1943.

From Dominions to Commonwealth realms

Initially, the
Dominions conducted their own trade policy, some limited foreign
relations and had autonomous armed
forces, although the British government claimed and exercised
the exclusive power to declare wars. However, after the passage of
the
Statute of Westminster the language of dependency on the Crown
of the United Kingdom ceased, where the Crown itself was no longer
referred to as the Crown of any place in particular but simply as
"the Crown." Arthur Berriedale Keith, in Speeches and Documents on
the British Dominions 1918-1931, stated that "the Dominions are
sovereign international States in the sense that the King in
respect of each of His Dominions (Newfoundland excepted) is such a
State in the eyes of international law." After then, those
countries that were previously referred to as "Dominions" became
independent realms where the sovereign reigns no longer as the
British monarch, but as monarch of each nation in its own right,
and are considered equal to the UK and one another.

World War
II, which fatally undermined Britain's already weakened
commercial and financial leadership, further loosened the political
ties between Britain and the Dominions. Australian Prime Minister
John
Curtin's unprecedented action (February 1942) in successfully
countermanding an order from Churchill that Australian troops be
diverted to defend British-held Burma (the 7th
Division was then en route from the Middle East to Australia to
defend against an expected Japanese invasion) demonstrated that
dominion governments might no longer subordinate their own national
interests to British strategic perspectives. To ensure that
Australia had full legal power to act independently, particularly
in relation to foreign affairs, defence industry and military
operations, and to validate its past independent action in these
areas, Australia formally adopted the Statute of Westminster in
October 1942 and backdated the adoption to the start of the war in
September 1939.

The Dominions Office merged with the India Office
as the
Commonwealth Relations Office upon the independence of India and Pakistan in August
1947. The last country to be officially made a Dominion was
Ceylon in
1948. The term "Dominion" fell out of general use thereafter. The
Republic of Ireland ceased to be a member of the Commonwealth on
April 1,
1949,
following proclamation of the Republic
of Ireland Act. This formally signaled the end of the former
dependencies' common constitutional connection to the British
crown. India also adopted a republican constitution in January
1950. Unlike many dependencies which became republics, the Republic
of Ireland never re-joined the Commonwealth and agreed to accept
the British Monarch as head of that association of independent
states.

The independence of the separate realms was
emphasised after the accession of Queen
Elizabeth II in 1952, when she was proclaimed not just as Queen
of the UK, but also Queen of
Canada, Queen
of Australia, Queen
of New Zealand, and of all her other "realms and territories"
etc. This also reflected the change from Dominion to realm; in the
proclamation of
Queen Elizabeth II's new titles in 1953, the phrase "of her
other Realms and Territories," replaced "Dominion" with another
mediaeval French word with the same connotation, "realm" (from
royaume). Thus, recently, when referring to one of those sixteen
countries within the Commonwealth of Nations that share the same
monarch, the term Commonwealth
realm has come into common usage instead of Dominion to
differentiate the Commonwealth nations that continue to share the
monarch as head of
state (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Jamaica, etc.) from
those which do not (India, Pakistan, South Africa, etc.). The term
"Dominion" is still to be found in the Canadian
constitution where it appears numerous times; however, it is
largely a vestige of the past, as the Canadian government does not
actively use it (see Canada section).
The term "realm" does not appear in the Canadian constitution.
Present-day general usage prefers the term realm because it
includes the United Kingdom as well, emphasising equality, and no
one nation being subordinate to any other. Dominion, however, as a
title, technically remains a term that can be used in reference
those self-governing countries within the Commonwealth of Nations,
other than the United Kingdom itself, that are in a personal
union relationship with the UK.

The generic language of dominion, however, did
not cease in relation to the Sovereign. It was, and is, used to
describe those territories in which the Monarch exercises her
sovereignty, the phrase Her Majesty's dominions being a legal and
constitutional term used to refer to all the realms and territories
of the Sovereign, whether independent or not. Thus, for example,
the British Ireland
Act, 1949 recognised that the Republic of Ireland had "ceased
to be part of His Majesty’s dominions." When dependent territories
which had never been annexed (that is, were not colonies of the
Crown), but were protectorates or trust territories (of the United
Nations) were granted independence, the United Kingdom act granting
independence always declared that such and such a territory "shall
form part of Her Majesty’s dominions"; become part of the territory
in which the Queen exercises sovereignty, not merely
suzerainty.

Many of the distinctive characteristics which
once pertained only to Dominions are now shared by other states in
the Commonwealth, whether they are republics, independent realms,
self-governing colonies or Crown colonies. Even in a historical
sense the differences between self-governing colonies and Dominions
have often been formal rather than substantial.